1st Transportation Minister , Katz has announced 30 March will see the opening of the “Fast” Jerusakem - Tel Aviv trains. Called fast, not high speed, possibly because it is only 160Km/ht, apporx. 100mph. Second, there will be a downtown station and a station near the Kotel (Western Wall of the Temple Mount) on a subway, which I presume will be an extension of the above fast line, since the about to open Jerusalem station is mostly underground, tracks on the lowest level. Third, I have seen evidence of new ligh rail construction,with the location corresponding to the Green Line section to the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus, not the Blue Line which was assumed to be next to be built. Citipass lost the renewal of contract and the new outfit as seen on the construction signs is some that can be translated just “Municipal Transportation.” I’ll have to report later whether this is a conglomorate firm or an in-house government agency. All that has been doen so far is a lot of protective fencing and some digging up of dirt. I just hope the new outfit does as good a job of operating the light rail system as Citipass has done. Finally, a teleferique, or suspended cable operation for Jerusalem, base station downtown near City Hall and upper station near the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus, seems to be under serious consideration.
I hope to ride the “Fast Line” the day it opens or soon after, taing pix if permitted. It wil be push-pull with electric locomotives, not mus.
When I was in Israel on a church tour group in 2008, I noticed that the rail line to Ber Sheva was being double tracked as it looked to be freight only. Is this line being extended to Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba? Forgive any mis spellings. Also, how much freight tonnage do these lines see?
There is practically hourly passenger service between Tel Aviv and Beir Sheva, and, requiring change-of-trains, with Beir Sheva having a stub-end terminal station, some passenger service south of Beir Sheva to Demona. There is considerable freight traffic, poassibly abaout four or five trains each way each normal weekday, Sunday through Thursday, but this is a guestimate. There is a freight-only cutoff line between Kiryat Gat, the first station north of North Beir Sheva - Ben Gurion University, east to the Mediteranian Port City of Ashkalon, and this carries ore mined west of Dimona at Oran, which has a freight only branch from Dimona. The proposed line to Elat would run south from Dimona. Very expensive consruction with tunnels and bridges required. Lots of environmentalist objections and danger to certain animal species continuing.
A much saner course would be to build the ten-mile connection across the border of Jordan and third-rail standar-gauge the well-built and low-grade line to Aqaba with the short conneciton crossing the border to Elat in Israel. For about 1/4th the cost of the controversial Elat extension, the whole Jordanian system could be converted to standard gauge and give Jordan access to Israel’s Mediteranian ports.
The Beir Sheva - Tel Aviv trains, hourly with a gap in the middle of the day, generally run through to Haifa and often all the way north to Naharia, running express between T. A. and Haifa, some nonstop and more stopping only at the break between the T. A. and Haifa suburban zones at Benyamina. Outside of the T. A. - Haifa service, trains usually stop at all stations on a particular route. Between T. A. and Haifa, local trains generally run to Benyamina from both directions, those from Tel Aviv originating at Ashkalon, or Ashdot. This is all from memory, and service patterns do change, and will probably change on 30 March.
The high-speed train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem made its first test run on Tuesday, carrying Transportation Minister Israel Katz and a large number of excited press photographers and reporters.
The day’s event began at Moshav Mishmar Ayalon, from where everyone was taken by minibus shuttle to the railway track, adjacent to Route 1 near Latrun. Soon after Katz arrived, the star of the show made its appearance – a brand-new electric locomotive hauling standard double-decker coaches.
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Katz remarked that this was a historic run, and stressed the importance of linking Jerusalem to the rest of the country by high-speed train. The route is to be called the King David Line, in homage to the founde
Israel railways is doing massive realignment work on a portion of the Tel Aviv - Haifa main double-track line. Much of the work is done at night. Part of the reason may be to insure clearances for catenary, but there is a lot of straightening involved as well.
Dave, thanks for your posts. One other sight on our tour was a place, I believe, named Kibbutz Gesher on the Golan. There was a rather impressive stone arch bridge over a ravine. It looked like it was part of the old Hejaz Railway. There were still about a dozen wood boxcars sitting on the bridge. In the display building, there was a saddle tank steam locomotive on display. It appeared that this rail line went into Syria, but it is obviously not used.
On Friday, too late for me to post, I learned from the Jerusalem Post latest news website that the safety people at Israel Railways have insisted on postponing the King David line opening by approximately six months. They want the line to be fully comleted, electrical equipment, signals, and locomotives tested in simulated use, before passenger service begins. I can speculate that events over the past few years in North America may have stiffened their backbone on insisting on this, and I do not blame them.
Jerusalem Light Rail underwent a similar testing period. It has operated very reliably.
Several posts earlier I mentioned the massive realignment of a central portin of the main line along the coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Steve Sattler forwarded thse arial photos, from Israel Railways of the result:
Ihe town noted in the second photo is Rishon Lizion West, and the third photo is between there and Zikhron Yaaov. The project seems to have involved changing the railway line to accomodate highway improvements with some straightening of the railway as well.
The Train that came and went! [The Jerusalem-El-Bira Adventure]
At the end of October 1917 while Lord Arthur James Balfour was having his ‘Palestine Declaration’ typed up, in Whitehall…. And soon it would be presented to Baron Walter Rothschild, as the famous Balfour Declaration, another event was happening some 3633 Kilometers to the east of the center of the British Empire.
In the late afternoon, the full regiments of the 4th and 12th Australian Light Horse cavalry, were charging into the setting sun. They had spent almost 3 days crossing the barren desert and hateful Negev sands to reach a 6-kilometer position well to the east of the 9 very important wells of Beersheba. Their horses were very thirsty and suffering under the Middle Eastern sun. T
More than a decade overdue, the electrification connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is expected to welcome its first through passengers next Saturday evening, December 21.
While no official announcement has yet been made by Israel Railways, online schedules show the first direct electric train departing Tel Aviv’s Hahagana Station at 9:56 p.m., arriving at Jerusalem Yitzhak Navon Station 34 minutes later. The first direct train from Jerusalem will also leave at 9:56 p.m., arriving in Tel Aviv at 10:28 p.m.
Some photos of a test train on this route
The TRAINS & TRAM SOCIETY of ISRAEL.
Dear all,
FYI
On this Sat. night at 9.56 pm- the first [real] passenger train [electric] will leave the NAVON station in Jerusalem for Tel Aviv - a direct line with only one stop at the airport. The trip is 33 minutes, and this new line will carry thousands of passengers every day.
At the same time a similar train will leave the HaHagana station in South TLV for the Navon station.
I was on this train today from Jm, and then later on -up to Jerusalem. {I had a quick chat with our FM - Yisrael Katz}
{An all day ticket for the old folk [like me] is 18.5 shkl and this includes the bus rides to and from the stations. Today- I caught my 68 bus in Ramat Eshkol, crossed the road at the CBS , descended in the [Navon] elevator to the platforms - took the Train [with all the officials on it], read the free Morning paper, and some notes; [and charged my phone] , changed trains at the airport [ a 10 min wait-on the same platform ] -got off at the Kirya station [HaShalom], -spent 1 hour in my office [signing papers & eat hot Borakas and coffee], took the train back to the airport, then hopped onto the Navon train, then the elevator up to the street [89 meters] , then bus 68- and I was home by 2 pm. all for 18.5 shkls on my green card.}
Steve
I noticed in the pictures that the tracks seem to be dual gauge. Is this the case on the entire line to Tel Aviv? When I was on a tour group as we rode north from Beersheeba in 2008, it looked like they were double tracking the line to that city and building a new one to Elat. Are these in full operation?
My explanaition of what looks like dual-gauge is that they recently replaced the rail and have not picked up the old rail yet.
The extension to Elat is open as far south from Beir Sheva as Doron. I have not learned of construction south of that point. There is construction going on north of Kvar Saba. mostly on previously abandoned RoW.
The TRAINS & TRAM SOCIETY of ISRAEL.
Dear all,
Last night - Saturday night - [ 21st December 2019 = Kaf Bet Kislev Tashap: ]
at 21.56 the first real and public electric passenger train left the new Jerusalem Navon Station and at 160 Km/hr flew down to Tel Aviv.
The trip took 32 mins- including a 2 min stop at the BGA airport.
At this time the last stop for this train is the south Tel Aviv = HaHagana Station, but soon this train will do all the Tel Aviv stations.
Jack May comments:
Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid. – Bernard Meltzer, Jewish radio personality
Taking that message from you to heart here are my comments (and photos). Of course I rode it with a 12-minute change at BGA. The only time advantage of the new service is the single seat ride, where a two-minute stop replace a 12-minute change of train. To the public using HaHaganah, this is a huge improvement, i.e. cutting their total trip time from 46 to 32 minutes (47 to 34 minutes westbound), a saving of 14 or 13 minutes, some 27 to 30 percent–all from eliminating the need to change from one train to another.
So from a technological viewpoint the only gain seems comes from further electrification. And for now at least, passengers from the other Tel Aviv stations will continue to have a two-seat ride. However, I am glad that there is now a 15-minute headway between HaHaganah and Ben Gurion, since the previous Jerusalem-Ben Gurion trains were extended to HaHaganah while the previous service from Tel Aviv to Ben Gurion (and on to Modlin) remains the same. Which I think was an excellent approach.
But all in all, I consider the improvement marginal.
Jack’s photos. diesel at T. A. Haganah and electric at the airport.
And from the Jerusalem Post, the first eastbound train:
Some photos during catenary installation from Israel Railways, probably all just north of the Tel Aviv Haganah station on the Ayalon corridor, looking north to the Tel Aviv Shalom Station:
Dave, what manufacturer built the passenger cars in the photus?
